EU to target Lukashenko money men in new sanctions

EU diplomats are preparing top-up sanctions on Belarus after Alexander Lukashenko jailed protesters for up to four years and amid reports of torture by his secret police, the KGB.

The new measures are designed to cause pain for the leader's state budget and private income but to avoid a shock to the country's economy or to EU companies in Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands and Poland, as informed by EU Observer.

The sanctions are to target individuals believed to be funneling money to the nomenklatura from petroleum products firms Belneftekhim and Triple, arms producer Beltechexport and the fertiliser company Belaruskalii.

The new package is being drawn up by EU embassies in Minsk and mid-level diplomats in Brussels and is likely to be adopted by EU foreign ministers in April.

The EU is also preparing to update its existing list of almost 160 officials put under a visa ban and asset freeze in January.

The original list included a dead judge and a duplicate judge. It also omitted to impose an asset freeze on Yuri Sivakov, a former interior minister accused of murdering four dissidents and laundering extortion money for high-level officials.

The omission prompted conspiracy theories in Minsk.

One independent journalist who did not want to be named said the UK and the US kept Mr Sivakov out of the asset freeze to make Lukashenko "paranoid" that he is an agent of Western subversion. EU diplomats say it was a clerical error. "The EU does not do psychological warfare," one diplomatic contact said.

The 64 or 65-year old Mr Sivakov is said to drink heavily and to belong to "Chyest" (Honor), a club for KGB veterans.

A former US ambassador to Minsk has reported that "Chyest" used to wash up to $1.5 milllion a day of black money for the Lukashenko cadre via banks in Poland, Russia and the US. But Mr Sivakov, who ran Chyest in 2006, no longer seems to be highly active.